An industry has evolved in the United States and throughout the world in which consumers rent prerecorded videotapes for home viewing. The videotapes may contain a vast range of different types of program material including, for example, movies and instructional programming. While the videotape rental industry continues to flourish, the development of competing technologies suggests that the popularity of videotapes may diminish with the advent of superior program formats. Some technologies presently vying for consumer acceptance are real-time formats such as cablecast and satellite broadcasts, and prerecorded formats such as analog/digital video disks and optic/magneto-optic disks. The technology which will ultimately supplant the videotape as a preferred medium is difficult to predict. The advent of such technologies has heralded some skepticism as to the fate of videotapes; however, the popularity of renting videotapes has yet to subside.
In the videotape rental industry, it is generally desirable for videotape rental establishments to offer consumers a wide selection of videotapes to attract customers into a store. In addition, it is generally desirable to stock multiple copies of particular tapes, especially tapes that have recently been placed on the market (so-called "new releases"). In the conventional store where a videotape or its packaging is displayed on a shelf, these factors militate toward increased shelf space and, therefore, larger stores. This may be impracticable in certain geographic areas such as large cities where real estate space is precious. Further, the vastness of some stores may adversely affect a customer's ability to comprehend his or her selection options.
Another problem in the art is that each customer in his or her past experience likely will have seen certain videotape selections that are offered by a particular store, whereas another customer undoubtedly will have seen different selections. The divergent experiences of store customers makes it difficult for groups of customers (e.g., friends) to collectively select a videotape that neither (or none) of them has seen. In addition, some customers may inadvertently select and rent a videotape only to discover that they have already seen the videotape.
A further problem in the art of videotape rental establishments is that customers tend to "hold" tentative videotape selections as they shop in the retail store in a quest for a more preferred selection. Each tape held by a customer is a potential lost rental (or sale) to another customer. Further, the rental establishment does not enjoy any profit from a customer holding a videotape unless it is actually rented or sold.
As a solution to one or more of the foregoing problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an improved method for enabling a selection of items, such as videotapes, from a catalog.
Another object of the present invention, as a solution to one or more of the foregoing problems, is to provide an apparatus which enables a selection of items from a catalog.
Other objects of the invention include, but are not limited to, the following:
To provide a method in which each customer's past designations are known and affect his or her present enablement to select items from the catalog;
To provide a method in which each customer's designations are retrievable and effect the presentation and/or enablement of selection of items in the catalog;
To provide a method in which each customer can generate a shopping or "short" list of one or more preferred items from the catalog without selecting a particular item to be rented and without incurring any fee;
To provide a method in which a first customer can combine his or her "short" list generated at one terminal with the short list of a second customer;
To provide a method in which each customer can reserve for a predetermined fee one or more greatly preferred items of the available items in the catalog without committing to renting the greatly preferred item;
To provide a method in which each customer can shop and reserve one or more items from the catalog at a location which is remote from the retail establishment;
To provide an automated method in which persons can designate one or more items from a customer's registry;
To provide an apparatus which achieves any of the foregoing objects; and
To provide a marketing tool which encourages the rental, purchase, use, attendance, or trying of things or activities made available through an electronic catalog.